The international climate strike was inspired by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who has been staging weekly climate change protests outside Sweden’s parliament.

More than 2,000 rallies were being staged in more than 120 countries on Friday.

“This is about youth rising and demanding action from the government,” said organizer Julia Weder, a fourth-year undergraduate student at the School of Environmental Studies.

Weder was among the students who spoke to Kingston city council last week ahead if its unanimous vote in favour of declaring a climate emergency.

“It comes at a really crucial time,” Weder said of Friday’s rally. “We really need to push Kingston to make decisive action.”

City council last week voted to declare a climate emergency “for the purposes of naming, framing and deepening our commitment to protecting our economy, our ecosystems and our community from climate change.”

Kingston is the first Ontario municipality to make such a declaration, and it’s author, Trillium District Coun. Robert Kiley, said it would allow council to consider the environmental costs and value in policy decisions.

Weder, co-chair of Queen’s Backing Action on Climate Change, said Kingston should take meaningful action to reduce the municipality’s greenhouse gas emissions .

Cynthia Hickox ties a wish ribbon on a line at the climate strike at Queen’s University on Friday. (Elliot Ferguson/The Whig-Standard)Elliot Ferguson /
Elliot Ferguson/Whig-Standard

“Climate change is the biggest threat to our future and it is affecting Kingston now,” she said. “It’s putting agriculture under threat and harming the most vulnerable and marginalized parts of our communities.”

She called on the city to protect agricultural land and environmentally sensitive areas and move forward with converting Kingston Transit’s fleet to electric.

The frustration that many in the crowd felt about government inaction became evident when Kingston and the Islands MP Mark Gerretsen spoke to the crowd in Confederation Park.

As a member of the governing Liberal party, Gerretsen was heckled by several people upset about the government’s purchase of the Trans Mountain Pipeline in British Columbia 10 months ago and the arrests of protesters at a blockade of a TransCanada pipeline.

Gerretsen and the Liberal government were called a “disgrace” and he was invited to join the Green party.

Gerretsen reminded the rally that he voted in favour of an opposition motion to not buy the pipeline.

The protesters on Friday also called for Queen’s University to divest itself of fossil fuel assets.

“We don’t have time any more to keep letting our decision-makers take these baby steps,” Weder said. “This is about survival. We are demanding big changes.”